Disney and Race

Disney’s fortunes were looking up this weekend with the $63 million box office for "Up," the digitally animated Pixar adventure about an elderly man and his flying house.

The Pixar business has been very, very good to Disney - no one combines technology and humanity any better, try as they will - and the digitally animated genre has become its new creative business model.

But will these new films have the potent afterlife of the hand drawn animated classics that were once Disney’s bread and butter?

Among Disney’s more durable classic titles are the so-called princess films - "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty" and ater "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast" - that entertained generations of young girls whose parents bought them the dolls, backpacks, lunch boxes and other merchandise related to the films.

A new princess comes to town this Christmas. Her name is Tiana, she is the lead character in "The Princess and the Frog."

Amazingly, she is the first animated African American - or American for that matter - princess in the Disney catalog, something that is long overdue. The story is set in New Orleans against a Creole backdrop. Tiana is a waitress who kisses a frog prince only to become a frog herself.

But there are already questions about whether Disney is racially sensitive enough to pull this off and whether the film conquers stereotypes or reinforces them, as the question was posed in Sunday’s New York Times. See that story here.

Similar questions were raised by Arab Americans over "Aladdin," and American Indians about "Pocohontas." And early Disney films like "Song of the South" and "Dumbo," reinforced the racial stereotypes of the times.

Audiences will decide for themselves once the new film - voice acted by Tony winner Anika Noni Rose and Oprah Winfrey - opens. But anyone who went to see "Up," this weekend saw "The Princess and the Frog" trailer, and may have come away with feelings of their own. What was yours?

I’ll withhold judgement, except to say that my first reaction was that the story seemed simplistic, the references to voodoo seemed broad, and that the animation had a direct-to-video quality.

Is this a tempest in a jambalya pot? Disney is in a damned if you do or don’t situation here, but the pressure is always greater when you have something to prove.

See "The Princess and the Frog" theatrical trailer below.

And watch the "When I See an Elephant Fly" clip from "Dumbo" below that.

"The Princess and the Frog"

"Dumbo"

About Duane Dudek

Duane Dudek is a reporter and columnist covering radio and television. He also reviews movies.